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Beyond health problems, an overly humid home can have a negative impact on the structure of your house as well. Too much moisture in your home can cause the wood in your home to swell, rot and deteriorate. As the humidity in your surroundings rises, it becomes increasingly difficult for our bodies to keep us cool. Sweat doesn’t evaporate effectively in humid weather, so our bodies pump out even more sweat to try and compensate. Excessive sweating can lead to loss of water and essential minerals that your body needs. When the moisture content in plaster, joists, or studs is constantly changing, it causes materials to swell or contract.
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Homeowners in these areas should consider installing a whole-house humidifier to increase the moisture in their home’s air. The signs of high humidity in the home include a musty smell, condensation on your windows, mold growth, and peeling paint. This method won’t provide you with an accurate moisture reading, but it will help you determine whether you’ll need to investigate the situation further. If condensation forms on the outside of the glass, it could mean you have too much moisture in your home.
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Ultimately, investing in a proper dehumidifier and ventilation will be the most effective solutions and provide a more comfortable environment for you to live in. Be on the watch for the next article about what to do when your home humidity is too low. As property managers, one of the issues we help homeowners with is humidity and it’s effects in their home. If your home has high humidity levels, you may find yourself uncomfortable even lounging on the couch. Or worse, high humidity levels could cause mold and bacteria to grow.
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HeatRisk has been tested and refined over the years across the West since its inception in 2013. Now, school systems in California use it to decide when outdoor activities are safe. Maricopa County, which includes the Phoenix metro, has incorporated its use into its heat management plans. A town in Michigan, for example, might get a red, or level-3 warning, when the mercury reads 85 degrees Fahrenheit, but a town in Florida with similar conditions might only get a risk warning of yellow, or 1.
HVAC System Design for Humid Climates
Low humidity can also generate excess static electricity, which sometimes affects electrical equipment and computers. In warmer temperatures, the atmosphere can hold more water vapor so, typically, turning up the heating in a room will cause relative humidity to fall. However, there are many different factors that cause these values to vary.
A functioning, high-quality air conditioning system essentially acts like a dehumidifier, removing moisture from the air as it cools. If your home stays humid, you likely have a problem with your system. Be sure to perform routine maintenance and regularly replace the filters on your air conditioner as well as your furnace, as clogged filters can stifle airflow. As we’ve discussed previously, ideally the figure should not drop below 30%. At lower humidity levels, the effects can include dry or itchy eyes, dry skin, and infections spreading more rapidly. Research from the Building Science Corporation found that humidity of 70% or higher adjacent to a surface can cause serious damage to the property.
Although brand new, the rooms in this hotel required extensive renovation to remediate mold problems. Moisture intrusion through the HVAC system was the culprit, and in the end, the problem required more than $6 million to repair. Assistant Editor Amy began working for Homebuilding & Renovating in 2018. She has an interest in sustainable building methods and always has her eye on the latest design ideas. Amy has interviewed countless self builders, renovators and extenders about their experiences for Homebuilding & Renovating magazine. She is currently renovating a mid-century home, together with her partner, on a DIY basis, and has recently fitted her own kitchen.
How to Choose a Dehumidifier That's Right for Your Home - Bob Vila
How to Choose a Dehumidifier That's Right for Your Home.
Posted: Fri, 27 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Climate is probably the most obvious playmaker in the humidity game. If it’s really humid outside, it’s probably going to be extremely humid in your home as well. Even if you close all the doors and windows, the air still seeps into your home and carries in all that extra water vapor with it. High humidity can cause extreme discomforts such as musty smells, clammy air, reducing the body’s ability to expel heat, making it feel much hotter than it really is, difficulty breathing or exercising, etc.
How Can You Measure Your Home’s Humidity Levels?
As a result, high humidity can lead to cracks, which may call for potentially expensive repairs. In the most serious cases, when a problem with excess moisture goes on for a long time, it can cause irreversible damage to hardwood floors, window-frames, and other wooden fittings. In this article, we’ll discuss how bad humidity can cause damage to your physical property, fixtures, and fittings. And how to make sure the conditions are right in your home to prevent future damage.
Dehumidifiers are cheap and easily found all over the great world wide web. These little machines can run day and night and are proven to suck the water right out of the air, and no, they don’t care how much you shower! The fancy ones also have humidity level indicators and the even fancier ones can be set to achieve specific humidity levels, giving you total control over your home’s environment. The water you give plants eventually evaporates into the air hence humidity levels see a rise.
These machines pull air from the room over a very cold coil, which causes any moisture in the air to condense and then drop into a collection bin. As this process continues with more and more air from the room passing over the coils, the overall humidity level decreases. Standalone dehumidifiers —such as the Vremi 22-pint Dehumidifier, the top pick in our guide to the best dehumidifiers—are relatively compact solutions for a single room. But whole house dehumidifiers that connect with a home’s HVAC system are also available to decrease moisture levels throughout the entire house. Here’s how to achieve ideal indoor humidity levels for the comfort of your family, and the structural integrity of your house. When a home’s humidity level is too high, you may see mildew and mold growth.
Some house plants are better than others at reducing humidity (some actually increase the water in the air, so be careful about which you choose). Taking early steps to limit humidity in rooms using home ventilation or a dehumidifier will help to prevent these problems and reduce the chance of them returning. If your home doesn’t have a furnace, McMurray suggests a Large Capacity Whole House Steam Humidifier.
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